IoT-based Drip Irrigation Monitoring and Controlling System using NodeMCU and Raspberry Pi

Abstract

Drip irrigation can be applied in greenhouse farming system, which small amounts of water and fertilizer can be feed uniformly to the crop root zone. In this work, an IoTbased drip irrigation monitoring and controlling strategy for greenhouse farming systems is proposed. It aims to automatically control the AB-mix nutrition feeding system for the plants. Each sensor and actuator involved in this system was developed to be a single object. Then, the respective objects could be programmed accordingly to perform their own function such as controlling the pumps, controlling the valve, detecting the nutrient level, sensing the soil humidity, etc. Each object has a unique identity to allow a streamlined communication between gateway and the objects by employing a light MQTT protocol. The MQTT protocol needs two components namely MQTT Client and MQTT Broker. The MQTT broker was installed on Raspberry Pi by using Mosquitto platform whereas the MQTT Client was installed on each NodeMCU for sensing or controlling the environmental parameters involved in drip irrigation process. Finally, a realtime data acquisition from sensors and actuators can be monitored through a web-based interface.